


our disembodied state

by be_cum



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Amnesia, Greek Mythology References, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 13:29:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9899282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/be_cum/pseuds/be_cum
Summary: When memories vanish so does the man because body is only a vessel.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to [no peace to the sword](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5033482) because someone in the dim and distant past asked me to write in this verse from Richelieu's POV. This fic is a shitty mess and I apologise. Intertext is from Of Monsters and Men's "Organs".
> 
> Warning: I'm Russian, English is not my first language. Feel free to laugh and correct my abysmal grammar&stylistics. Also this is an excercise of 'how many pretentious words that my English tutor makes me learn will I manage to squeeze in'. Oh, and it's not beta'ed.

_Rising, he said: "Thou now canst understand_

_the sum of love which warmeth me toward thee,_

_since I forget our disembodied state,_

_and act with shades as if they solid were."_

_― Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio, Canto XXI_

 

**So I take off my face, because it reminds me how it all went wrong**

 

He wakes up heaving for breath, his throat dry and raw.

“Here,” someone presses a glass to his chapped lips, and he drinks gratefully. “Oh, my dear Uncle, you gave us such a scare!”

The voice breaks and Richelieu opens his eyes.

Poor Marie is clutching his arm, her eyes wet and cheeks covered with whitish powdery traces of dried tears.

“What’s wrong, child?” He asks touching her thin wrist. Her skin is cold and clammy. “I must have fallen from a horse… Do you know that good Samaritan who had brought me here?”

Marie’s grip on his arm slackens.

“You don’t…” She falters. “I mean, don’t you remember the…”

He looks around. The room is foreign: terra incognita.

Marie’s face, lost and uneasy, is disconcerting.

“Where are we, dear?” Richelieu asks softly.

For a moment he is afraid that Marie is going to faint, but soon she regains her composure and covers his hand with hers giving a reassuring squeeze, though it is undoubtful that out of the two of them it’s her that needs one.

“We’re at my premises. You collapsed not far away and were brought here.”

He closes his eyes for a moment trying to recall the events previous to this peculiar accident. The memory is blank, it’s a strange feeling: to wake up as if you have never existed before.

“I must have hit my head very hard. My recollection of recent past seems rather unclear.”

“Recent past,” Marie echoes, voice distant. “Yes, Uncle, I’m certain that it will soon pass. I assure you, you have missed nothing of the extraordinary.”

Suddenly, he feels exhausted. Marie is not telling the truth yet nor is she lying. He pretends that it goes unnoticed and doesn’t tell her whole truth either. During their conversation they meet somewhere in between.

“Whoever brought me here,” he adds. “I would like to thank him in person.”

“I’ll make the enquiries,” Marie says decisively. “But for now, you must rest. I profoundly apologise but I have to leave you for a while, as my duties before the Queen cannot be put on hold for long.”

He frowns.

“I have been appointed as the Queen’s lady-in-waiting.” She clarifies. “After Marquis’ untimely death I couldn’t bear the isolation of deserted house, and Her Majesty had kindly offered her help.”

“I don’t remember.” Richelieu says.

It’s Marie’s turn to close her eyes. Richelieu doesn’t see the fear that flickers at the bottom of her irises but from the tremble in her fingers he expects it to be there.

“Forgive me, Uncle, for my forgetfulness” her smile is brittle as she takes his answer in her stride. “Of course you don’t.”

Marie, he realises, is a foreigner to him too. Her face is as soft and gentle as it used to be, but there is steel and strength underneath the translucent porcelain of her skin.

Richelieu tries to recall the last thing he remembers and finds himself at loss. The things he knows about himself are not quite enough to fill the vast expanse of blank space in his head.

Memories, as it turns out, maketh man.

He is not sure what to make of himself now.

 

*

 

Faces are the most difficult to tackle.

The words he can do, to will his voice to sound steady is just a matter of practice, yet faces he finds the most difficult to understand. Marie’s solemn wrinkle that crosses her unblemished smooth forehead is inscrutable, her sadness and worry hidden deep in her eyes are unreadable.

He says that he is a clergyman because God and prayers are etched deeply in his head like a scar that will never truly heal. Marie maintains that he dedicated himself to theological catechisms.

Richelieu agrees because he remembers none of them so it would make no difference.

May be he did write them, for all he knows.

Although he finds it nugatory, teaching someone about faith, because this is something a man should come to on his own; despite that God never really leaves you, some things have to be done alone.

The drawer in his table is empty, howeverб he sees darker patches of expensive wood, places where heavy stacks of paper once lay. A thin, barely there scatter of dust indicates that papers have been extracted not long ago.

Richelieu doesn't feel like confronting Marie about this matter.

He finds the catechisms he’s written. It’s not a heavy reading nor they are substantial enough to believe that writing was his main occupation, but it’s enough to entertain him until Marie introduces their guest.

She calls him ‘Captain Treville’ and claims that it is him who rescued Richelieu in the accident they all know have never happened. Richelieu raises his head and gazes steadily at the incomer.

Captain Treville looks at him like he is a dead man walking which is, strictly speaking, not entirely untrue.

When memories vanish so does the man because body is only a vessel.

“Captain,” the vessel of a man Treville once knew speaks. “I am forever in your debt.”

In the deep lines etched on his weathered skin Richelieu reads relief, panic, anger, shock: feelings that manage to assemble into an expression of absolute numbness.

“It’s nothing,” Treville clears his throat and adds, a touch defensively, as if expecting a continuation of an argument he and Richelieu have never had. “It is a matter of honour, to help those who are in need.”

“Of honour,” Richelieu echoes, pensive. “I suppose it’s only fitting.”

And as something unreadable flickers across Treville’s face, Richelieu regrets that he didn’t pretend in that moment, that he didn’t counterfeit recognition.

On the other hand, he doesn’t even dare to think about the consequences that would follow in that particular scenario.

He’d forgotten something far grander than he initially anticipated.

The worst thing about the faces is that he doesn’t remember them even though they must have been so vital to him, once.

 

*

 

Tantalus’ punishment was to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Whenever he reached for the fruit, it eluded his grasp. Whenever he bended down to drink, the water receded before blessful liquid touched his desperate lips.

The damnation of it is in its eternity, so supposedly, he’s still there, even though he’s no longer history but a myth, a story written in poetry and songs.

He’s still there, suffering from hunger, because pagans thought it to be the strongest desire known to mankind.

 

*

 

**and I pull out my tongue, because it reminds me how it all went wrong**

 

Despite having a very good reason to be angry with Marie, Richelieu isn't, simply because he is memoryless and not stupid. He has no desire whatsoever to be locked up in asylum, or worse, to be burned on a pyre for so inconveniently coming back to life.

They don’t talk about it even after Marie’s resignation from her position.

“You didn’t have to do it for my benefit, dear,” Richelieu protests as she packs their possessions to send to Chaillot.

She shakes her head and smiles thinly.

“I think a little bit of time outside of the city will do us both good, Uncle,” Marie replies. “There are so many memories… Being present at Court is becoming unbearable.”

Richelieu knows that she’s lying. And yet…

“You have grown more fatigued recently,” he reluctantly concedes.

“Please, don’t worry,” she allays his concerns. “I assure you, it’s just a trick of light. Besides, the Court is in agitation as of late, and it’s exhausting.”

“I suppose it is,” Richelieu agrees. “Such intrigues are excruciating, aren’t they? But, in the end, are necessary.”

“So they are,” Marie acquiesces.

“We must be eternally grateful for that we are relieved of such unbearable burden,” he continues. “I pray for those who have to carry it.”

“It is tolerable, if in the right company,” she offers.

“I’m sure everything is,” Richelieu muses. “Even, heaven forbid, awaiting for the Last Days in eternal damnation.”

Marie gives him a strange look and leaves rather hurriedly on the grounds that it’s a high time she went to the Petit Luxembourg’s chapel for the Mass before Captain Treville comes for dinner.

He finds the papers Marie has hidden, albeit he suspects she only has done so half-heartedly, or worse, actually hoped he does find them in his own time.

Richelieu knows that she tries to gentle him into remembering, and his heart fills with joy at the thought of what a remarkable woman Marie has become, and it is devastating that he doesn’t even remember her ascend.

Despite her earnest distaste for Court and its games, he does see reason behind her unlikely position in the Queen’s escort.

Richelieu thumbs the papers through before putting them back into the drawer where they used to be. For now, he has dinner to look forward to.

“How was the meal, Captain?” He asks carefully, after Marie leaves them alone.

“Good,” Treville replies tersely. “For the record, I'm not a Captain anymore.”

“That I’ve heard,” in serious matters his stubbornness and bluntness must be frustrating. In a comfort of peacefull evening, Richelieu finds them merely amusing. “However, it is not a military rank.”

Treville flinches and instantaneously composes himself. Richelieu files away this rare moment of his facade sliding away to reveal an exhausted man with a burden on his shoulders too heavy to be carried by one.

“However, that was not a question,” Treville returns to nursing his wine.

He is tense but his comebacks are instant and almost instinctual, like it is something more natural than breathing, between the two of them. Or something they’ve done instead of it.

Richelieu quiets and waits for a déjà vu that could probably trigger him to remember. He waits and none comes, although surely this is something they have done quite often. It’s in Marie’s tactful departure, Treville’s careful replies, his intent gaze that is a terra incognita of its own.

It is similar to waking up and still be engulfed by a complete darkness or being blinded.

Similar but not the same, Richelieu knows the difference.

He doesn't sleep very well.

 

*

 

Tartarus is so dark that the night is poured around it in three rows like a collar round the neck, while above it grow the roots of the earth and of the unharvested sea.

 

*

 

Marie visits the church regularly and prays relentlessly. Richelieu doesn't know what sins she tries to absolve and doubts that she has any, yet he is not the one to judge.

Seldom, he gets short messages written on cheap paper stained with dirt and oil, language dry and cynical, words careful and hesitant.

Richelieu wants to ask everything straight away, about late evenings and a shared bottle of wine, about history behind Treville’s indecipherable surreptitious glances: terra incognita, a mystery yet to be unraveled and etched on a map in his head.

Maybe it’s a religion too; the faith that Richelieu has to rediscover for himself.

Treville’s visits to Chaillot are even rarer than his letters, so Richelieu plans to make the most of them and always forgets, lost in a warm presence of another person in a room and a comfortable quietude.

Treville complains about his men, four in particular, and Richelieu listens half-heartedly, distracted by raw abrasions on his knuckles. His skin, weathered and calloused looks rough to touch, is still fragile, reddened with a thin scab of dried blood.

“It’s nothing,” Treville dismisses when Richelieu raises his gaze. “My opponents weren’t so lucky though.”

He sounds smug and alive, and Richelieu bites his lip, insides fluttering from anticipation.

“Tell me.”

“Fine,” Treville huffs and the chair creaks against a worn leather, accommodating him for a long stay.

He absorbs every word, Treville’s voice low and steady, story told in a comforting murmur, as every lullaby should be told only to be forgotten as soon as you drift off to a slumber.

Richelieu listens, eyes closed.

 

*

 

He rouses under a thick blanket thrown across him, fire long gone, and room empty.

He could swear that it was a warm and chapped touch on his forehead, a gentle squeeze of his fingers that woke him up.

 

*

 

“Do you ever miss it?”

Treville puts his glass away.

“What exactly?”

 _Me,_ Richelieu thinks. _Do you miss my presence like I do when you are in Paris, do you ever miss the sense of belonging to something greater than you are?_

“The Captaincy.”

Treville smiles bitterly. _I miss the simplicity of everything that used to be._

Richelieu shakes his head imperceptibly. _Liar. I doubt that it was ever simple._

Treville’s lips twitch. _Perhaps._

Did they always converse without ever needing words? Or was it words that they wielded against each other, weapons that sometimes held more power and fatality than a sword ever could.

“I'm a simple man, I'm not prone to reflect upon the past.” Treville says at last.

“On the contrary, I know that you are an extremely complicated man.”

“You know?”

“Trust me,” _I wish I remembered,_ Richelieu hides his wistful smile behind the full glass. “I do.”

Treville certainly has difficulties either with this statement or trusting Richelieu or all of the above, so he remains silent for several minutes.

“Okay,” he says at last. “I believe you.”

 

*

 

**and I cough up my lungs, because they remind me how it all went wrong**

 

One evening, when the weather is particularly beneficial to his frail health, Richelieu, instead of going back to the mansion after seeing Treville off, stays behind for a while and breathes in crisp air full of autumn rich smells.

“Even if he remembers… no difference,” he hears Marie’s broken whisper.

“France needs… The King…” a loud thump and a frustrated groan. Richelieu can’t help himself but smile: Treville is extraordinarily predictable at times. “Is he happy?”

“Is it of any importance to you?” Marie sounds almost angry, although it’s only Richelieu who can read her fury in the cold tone and clipped voice. “It certainly is of no significance to France.”

He waits for an answer but the silence stretches out for a very long time, interrupted only by Treville getting on a horse.

Richelieu turns and as softly as possible, retreats, unnoticed.

He’s not sure if he’s happy.

He doesn’t remember if he ever was; so, he supposes, it doesn’t really matter.

 

*

 

He asks her about the past just once. They are well past feigning ignorance in front of each other.

“Was I good to you?” Richelieu asks.

Marie stills and only the slightest hitch in her voice gives away her anxiety.

“Yes,” she answers quickly and it is all the answer Richelieu needs to know.

“You did the right thing,” he continues. “You still do, I hope you are aware of that.”

She bursts in tears and his heart clenches at the sight. Richelieu gathers her into a firm embrace until her sobs subside.

“I'm sorry,” she says, “I am so sorry, I hope you understand.”

Richelieu does because he would have done the same. The practicality and cold reason runs in the family where conjectures and surmises are deemed sentimental and foolish.

It is a great error of judgement to presume that calculated decisions are made out of cold-heartedness. Nothing is harder than making a right decision over the one that’s driven on pure emotion.

Richelieu wanted nothing but for Marie not to be in position to make such choices.

“My dear child, you have nothing to apologise for,” he presses his lips against the crown of her head. “I am sorry too.”

 

*

  


Richelieu goes to church which Marie frequents. He prays for her in heavy and hazy darkness: because it’s late, almost every candle has burnt out.

On his way back he hesitates before kindling one for Treville’s health, wherever he is now.

 

*

 

“I am Marie, Uncle, and we are at Chaillot,” she greets him the next morning.

“I remember, dear,” he replies patiently.

They’ve been at Chaillot for over three years now. She repeats it every morning.

It happens because he once forgot where they were. Marie dropped her intricate sewing and paled.

Treville came at once, almost rode his horse to death in his haste.

Richelieu felt so betrayed for being treated by them like some kind of a cripple that he didn't even have strength in him to give them any reassurance about his condition.

It was the first time when Richelieu refused to see him, blaming it on a severe headache that made him bed-ridden.

And the last because after that he doesn’t see Treville for another five months.

Richelieu spends them feeding off rumours that reach Chaillot and careful, furtive inquires Marie manages to sneak into her erratic correspondence with the Queen.

Marie listens to his advices and writes them down; although Richelieu considers her diligent efforts futile because he doesn’t believe that the Queen will pay them any heed.

Richelieu waits for a simple envelope containing a piece of cheap paper stained with dirt and oil but none comes.

“Would you mind if we had a guest, Uncle?” Marie asks in lieu of her usual greeting.

The absence of sickening “we are at Chaillot” makes Richelieu want to consent to anything.

“Of course I wouldn’t,” he smiles.

“I’m afraid, the circumstances are rather unfortunate,” Marie’s voice is thin and cracked.

Father Joseph dies at Chaillot in the middle of a particularly cold December, in agony and delirium that allowed Richelieu to stay by his side.

“Your Eminence,” he rasps. “I dare not to enquire if the place you are leading me to is Hell or Heaven.”

“I’m merely keeping you company, dear friend,” Richelieu replies. “Don’t plan on joining me for some time.”

“Purgatory it is then,” Father Joseph tries to smile but it just contorts his features into a death mask even more.

“I am sure, He will be lenient. Just hang on for a bit. I think that the news from the German front will come in a couple of days.”

“If only you hung on for a few years more, Your Eminence,” Father Joseph sighs. “France wouldn’t fall.”

“On the contrary, I think it’s doing an admirable job, all thanks to you,” Richelieu says, clutching his cold hand.

He should have asked after Father Joseph. He should have done something, because this, the cold hand with the unmistakable death pallor, the agony written on the friar’s face, the delirium and absurd conversation were never supposed to happen.

“Courage, Father Joseph,” he whispers to grey features no longer breathing. “We have won Breisach.”

Richelieu belatedly thinks that Father Joseph, perhaps, was the only person who would have believed him, had he said the truth.

Marie cries. She attends the funeral alone.

Treville arrives unannounced, Marie gone to overlook the building of a monastery she invested her money into.

“Did the war end?” Richelieu asks, startled.

Treville laughs as he sits on the chair.

“No idea,” follows his honest reply.                                                               

“You just missed me,” Richelieu teases.

“I missed your cats.”

“Liar,” he smiles. He forgets that he’s ought to be furious with Treville for his prolonged absence. “Now tell me a story about your adventures that kept you so busy.”

“Nothing of any importance,” comes usual reply yet Treville still complies and starts talking. “We did take Breisach though.”

Richelieu suddenly realises that since their second first meeting they aged quite significantly. There are lines between Treville’s brows and grey in his beard that weren’t there before. It’s only natural and shouldn’t be so surprising yet Richelieu is amazed at how time flies.

It hasn’t even been five years and it’s all he’s got opposing Treville’s decades of knowing him.

Still, time is running out for him and there's still so much left to uncover. Why Treville's voice sometimes deepens to a low rumble that resonates with such enlightening clarity inside of Richelieu’s head; why Trevilieu’s smile, crooked and hidden, imprints on the back of his lids; why Richelieu feels like his lungs are too big for his insides yet too small for him to breathe every time Treville glances at him with a peculiar look that does not belong to him.

“Is there something on my face?” Treville’s blue of his eyes is scintillating.

Richelieu suddenly feels that his mouth is very dry.

 

*

 

In Purgatory you know exactly how long you have to atone for your sins to reach Heaven.

In Hell your suffering is never-ending; centuries, thousands years more to come.

 

*

 

Sometimes, Richelieu wakes up and it’s still a long time before the dawn, his bedroom dark and unrecognisable.

For some reason unknown, the hours before morning seem endless. During such unlimited time, Richelieu lays still, blanket soft and warm under his numb fingertips, and reflects. In those hours he feels empty more than ever, alone in his bed, Marie still asleep and the house eerily quiet.

If men are only vessels, may be some vessels are broken, water of memories slipping through a multitude of thin cracks.

 

*

 

Danaides murdered their husbands and are bound to fill up the urn with water to wash off their sins. Water spills from the fractured urn and it is to be filled up again. And again and again with no hope of it being full ever again (it must have been once, before it cracked).

 

*

 

It’s well past midnight and it’s one of rare and precious cases when Treville doesn’t hurry back to Paris and stays the sleepless night at Chaillot filled with comfortable silence and idle conversations to pass the time.

“Are you happy here?” Treville asks unexpectedly.

Richelieu remembers the same question and Treville’s silence that hurt more than a betrayal ever could.

“Sometimes,” he replies.

“Aren’t you, well…” Treville shrugs. “Bored?”

“Treville, I’m a sick man,” Richelieu says frankly. “I don’t have much time left.”

“Don’t say that,” Treville cuts in sharply.

“And I want to spend it all with my niece whom I’ve neglected unfairly in the past.” Richelieu continues. “Besides, your visits are pleasantly refreshing.”

Treville nods, his eyes are absent and disillusioned. May be it’s not what he’s expected from Richelieu. He finds that he can’t bring himself to care, fed up with unfulfilled expectations and Treville’s eyes full of incomprehensible longing, his arm always out of reach whenever Richelieu pleads him to stay just for a little bit longer because with him he is as close to being whole as he can get.

He is very tired but stubbornly wills himself to stay awake. Treville watches him battling with Morpheus for some time before taking pity on him.

“Sleep,” he says firmly.

Richelieu wants to say that he’s not fatigued at all, that it’s just wine and warmth of the hearth but fears that something desperate and needy will come out instead.

“Sleep,” Treville repeats, voice soft and almost as gentle as his hands that cover Richelieu with blanket; he promises, “I’ll still be here when you wake.”

Richelieu feels tepid warmth of his touch seeping through worn wool.

“I believe you,” he says.

 

*

 

**but I leave in my heart, because I don't want to stay in the dark**

“I am Marie, Uncle, and we are at Chaillot.”

“I remember, dear,” he replies tiredly. Her smile that makes her eyes crinkle with delight and hope is always worth it.

“You know,” Richelieu starts absentmindedly, “I’ve received a letter from Carmelites. Your confidante seemed quite assured that you still desire to join their monastery.”

Marie smoothes out the non-existent wrinkles on her plain dark frock and says nothing.

“Dear, I’m not going to stop you, you know,” Richelieu continues. “Everything is going… steady.”

“You don’t have to make amends,” Marie replies exasperatedly. “I’m content where I am. I’m needed here.”

“I’m not helpless,” Richelieu snaps. “Nor am I getting any better.”

“And I know this isn’t exactly what you’ve always wanted…” Marie trails off.

Richelieu has no clue what he considered as happiness, he's not entirely sure what happiness is for him now. Marie sees it in his eyes, or may be in the frustrated twist of his lips, or what's more likely, she just knows.

“I don’t remember what I want.”

 

*  


“You seem distracted.”

Richelieu hums. “So do you.”

“The situation at Court is rather turbulent,” Treville replies succinctly.

 _Then don’t talk about it,_ Richelieu studies the thin and tense line of his mouth. _Tell me about something you want me to tell._

Influencing the Queen’s opinions through Marie is rather amusing. Richelieu has an instinctual feeling that they didn’t really see eye to eye.

Marie can’t do more than just postponing the inevitable but it buys Treville time. Not like he needs to know about it.

“This country is in good hands,” Richelieu shrugs. “You deserve a quiet evening.”

“I don’t have time to alleviate your boredom when the country is in an uproar and the Governor of Paris rots six feet under the ground,” Treville snaps.

“That is not what I meant,” Richelieu replies. “Although the least I want to do is to detain you from your duties before the King and France, you are always welcome here.”

They don’t need words to converse yet they talk in completely different languages.

“I don’t know if you are going mad from boredom or if you really are this ignorant,” Treville says incredulously.

“Of the King’s inevitable death, the ever so slightly delicate matter over regency or the Dauphin’s actual fatherhood?” Richelieu retorts.

Treville leans back and inspects the remnants of wine in his glass. Evidently, they are not nearly inebriated enough to have this conversation. What is even worse, they are cold sober to remember it.

“So you know.”

“Yes, I _know_ ,” Richelieu emphasises. “You want to tell me something?”

Treville chuckles bitterly and puts his glass away.

“No,” he replies evenly with an air of decisive finality.

Richelieu feels more exhausted than annoyed.

“Why?” he knows the answer long before Treville speaks.

“It wouldn’t make any difference.”

 

*

 

Dante said once that every virtue has its roots in love and yet every sin we atone for is forged exactly in the same place.

Orpheus loved Eurydice so much that he traveled down to the Underworld to retrieve her from Hades.

He loved her so that he couldn’t resist but turn around, only witnessing her withering to a pale ghost in the land of shadows, dying for the second time.

She couldn’t speak a word; all the words of reassurance (I forgive you, it's not your fault) lay heavy on her speechless tongue.

  


*

 

“Why do you love Aeneid?” Richelieu asks. “You don’t seem like a man who has a tincture of literature.”

“I don’t,” Treville says pointedly. _Oh, right._ “But it is surprisingly educational.”

They speak of many things and none of them are important. They don’t speak of mourning ribbons that cross people’s chests like wounds, nor do they acknowledge the panic in the capital, the hysterical tears of the Queen, the grimness of their features, the civil war that is about to tear this country asunder.

Richelieu pretends he doesn’t notice Marie’s correspondence carelessly left on the dining table. Treville ignores the name of the Duchesse d’Aiguillon that frequented Anne’s thoughts. Marie ignores not so thinly veiled hints of Anne seeking refuge in Chaillot and comes to Paris instead.

Indeed, there is quite a lot of ignorance in this house.

“The question of violence consequencing more violence is worth pondering on,” Richelieu agrees. “The preordained destiny, on the other hand, does not sit well with me.”

“You don’t seem like a man who has a tincture of a rebel.”

“I dislike the mentality of heretics. Not that it’s not prone to negotiation though,” he adds carefully. “Could be useful in more turbulent times.”

Treville rolls his eyes imperceptibly. _As if you care about the religious aspect of things._

Richelieu sips his wine. _I wouldn’t know._

Apparently, the entire history of human desire takes twenty years to tell. Richelieu doesn't have such time.

He will never understand the past Treville and he shared but surely it is not a heavier burden to carry than Treville’s or his poor Marie’s.

You can live with it and be quite content.

“I do hope Dauphin isn’t hidden in some dingy place without proper surveillance,” Richelieu finally speaks up. “And if something goes wrong…”

Marie is with the Queen in Paris acting as a diversion and if that Dauphin’s father dares to merely look strangely at Marie, Richelieu will ride there himself, consequences be damned, and personally strangle the wretch with his bare hands.

For once Treville isn’t looking for something in Richelieu, he just sits and probably thinks he’s a good liar which is, obviously, a ridiculous assumption.

“Listen,” Treville speaks. “Never mind that, just listen.”

Richelieu does.

“It’s going to work. I have spies.”

“Somehow I highly doubt that your pietas allows it.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I would not. You cheat at chess.”

“Richelieu,” Treville says, a little bit louder. “She is stronger than you think.”

“She is stronger than you and I combined, the entire French army to boot.”

“If I said that she’s protected by the best and most vicious assassin I know, would it quell your worries?”

“I’m a man of church, Treville. I do not approve of assassins. Most vicious, you say?”

The sun rises slowly, painting the room in bleak blues.

“You must be cold,” Treville says quietly. “I’ll tell to lit up a fire on my way out.”

He stops him by touching his bare wrist with his fingers. Treville pauses, his hand is an embodiment of perfect stillness. Richelieu looks at him steadily, seeing him, for what it feels like the last time.

Time is running out: water through the cracks. Danaides fill up the urn over and over. The gods themselves are not in control of mortals’ eventual fate. Gods can only intervene but the fate of every single human is set in stone and cannot be changed.

Thankfully, this is pure heresy albeit Latin that it’s written in is exquisite.

“You want to tell me something?”

“Nothing in particular, no,” Treville watches him carefully. “But you want me to and I'm feeling generous.”

“If you insist,” Richelieu rolls his eyes.

Treville smiles and looks at him with such spectacularly badly hidden fondness, Richelieu regrets he can't preserve it with something more reliable than his memory. Because this is not for a man Treville sees in him, this belongs solely to Richelieu he is now.

“Tell me a story,” Richelieu asks. _Please don't go._

“It’s a very long one.” Treville replies after a momentary pause.

The entire history of human desire takes twenty years to tell.

“It’s okay,” _I know the most of it._ “I think it's worth it.”

 

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> Richelieu did compose some catechisms, his most famous one is 'L'Instruction du chrétien' written in 1618 during his exile in Avignon back in the days when he was wild and punk Bishop of Luçon.
> 
> Father Joseph died on December 17, 1638. The story that Richelieu visited Father Joseph when on his deathbed and roused the dying man by the words, "Courage, Father Joseph, we have won Breisach", is fake but I love it, I don't care.
> 
> Pietas is not a painting of Virgin Mary cradling Jesus. It's loosely translated as 'duty', 'devotion' and 'loyalty', a distinguished virtue of Aeneas, the main character of Virgil's Aneid although it fits Treville too. I believe that Treville secretly loves Aneid, it's like classical James Bond.
> 
> References or shameless paraphrase are from, in no particular order: Ovid, Metamorphoses; Robert Garland, The Greek Way of Death; Hesiod, Theogony; Dante, Divine Comedy; Virgil, the Georgics; Virgil, Aeneid.


End file.
